3OYS WARNING: Bank Scams

PHOENIX -- Have you received an email from your bank? Chances are no, because banks normally don't email customers requesting information, but scammers sure do.

Scammers love misleading and instilling fear and they do that by sending out emails posing as your bank.

But the last thing you want to do if you get an email like that is reply back.

Linda Depaolo says although she's retired she's still really busy.

"Well I'm kinda semi-retired, I do some real estate and I do some fostering for the dog rescues," said Linda.

Which means Linda spends quite a bit of time on the computer and on her email. But it was a recent email that caught her attention.

"I was scanning through and saw this one from Chase Bank and I'm a Chase Bank customer so it grabbed my attention," she recalled.

What was concerning was what the email said.

"Some restrictions have been placed on your account, these restrictions will remain in effect until you review attachment for your action."

And what was more alarming was what that attachment was asking for.

"There was an attachment you were supposed to open and then fill in the blanks with secure information, social security, all those things you know you shouldn't give out to some random email," Linda stated.

Linda thought the email might be a scam, so she took it to Chase so bank employees could review it.

"They thought it was really well done too, and they were going to send it on to their corporate office and yes definitely that it was just a phishing scam," said Linda.

In fact, 3 On Your Side has found that this "phishing scam" is such a problem J.P. Morgan Chase is issuing a warning stating:

"Some of our customers have received emails that appear to be from J.P. Morgan, but is actually designed to trick them into revealing private information."

Linda says she's glad she didn't fall for it and hopes others don't either

“It's really scary what people are doing out there to try and scam people into giving out personal information so they can steal their funds, it's really scary,” she stated.

Some bank customers may be on an alert list authorizing banks to contact customers in case of fraud.

But the best thing to do is to call the 1-800 number on the back of your debit card for example, that way you know you're calling a legitimate number and not a scam number.